Head to Head
by cocoagua
Summary: Sequel to "Conversations". Dan and Blair continue to cultivate their friendship.
1. Chapter 1

"What do you like most about writing?" She asks him while they watch Casablanca.

"I'm sorry, what?" It rarely happens that they're taken aback by each other's inquiries. They are used to completely unrelated topics springing out of their conversations.

"Writing. What do you like about it?" She does not sound annoyed, like she usually would. She just sounds curious.

"Two things, actually, and they contradict each other." He keeps up. "One is that sometimes, when I write, I just get into a sort of trance and the story takes me wherever it's going. When that happens, I'm surprised by the outcome. The other one is that most of the time, I'm in control. I know what will happen, mainly because I know how I _want_ things to happen." He takes a deep breath. "I would think it's the equivalent of making your own fairy tales, Waldorf."

"But we only do that if we have to." She says softly as she recalls what Chuck told her when they said goodbye.

"That's the point, Waldorf. I have to." He says, resigned. Somehow she thinks it shouldn't be the case.

…

"I have no more friends." He says when she sneaked out of a dinner party.

"I'm not surprised, Humphrey." She tells him jokingly before letting out a deep sigh.

"You good there?" He asks.

"I think I want to go home. And you do have friends. You have Serena, Nate, Eric." She feels stupid telling him this. Surely he knows about that and he's just on some kind of drug that's pushing him into a self-pity state.

"Then go home. I'm sure Louis has resources that will have you here and back in no time. And I take it you don't read Gossip Girl?" Her enumeration of people he used to have as friends gave away the fact that she doesn't know that nobody is talking to him.

"Princess Sophia doesn't approve of it. She made sure that it's blocked in all devices." Saying it aloud made it sound that she's in some kind of prison.

"Then I'll have you know that I am back to outsider status." He chuckles.

"_Inside?_" She understands almost instantly.

"Right on."

"I'm still here." She answers him. She doesn't know what has gotten into her.

…

"Waldorf?" He opens his bedroom door and finds Blair standing outside.

"Humphrey. You left the door unlocked." She looks around. His room is a mess, just like the rest of the loft.

"What are you doing here?" He asks her as she starts cleaning the place.

"I came home." She looks at him and smiles. "Take a shower. We're going out."

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><p><strong>AN: Soooooooo. I decided to continue writing for Dair. To be honest, my head's all over the place and I have a dozen ideas as to where I want this story to go. I just don't know how to organize my thoughts...yet. I will continue to update, though :)**

**Review if you may. :)**


	2. Chapter 2

"_We're going out."_

Dan goes back to bed and covers himself with a blanket. She lets out a little grunt as she watches him hide under the covers with the pillow covering his head.

"No." His answer is muffled. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head.

"Humphrey! What are you, 12? If you don't take a shower now, I'm going to drag you out of bed and pull you into the bathroom."

"I don't want to go out, Blair." He says, peeking out from under the pillow.

"Fine." She says, sitting down at the edge of his bed. "But please take a bath or you'll start looking like a hobo. Plus, you smell terrible."

…

He finds her sitting on his bed, fiddling with his computer.

"So… aren't you supposed to be in Monaco or something?" He raises his eyebrows. If he is going to be honest with himself, he's more than happy to have her here.

"The things that should and the things that are are often different things, Humphrey." She tells him. Her look seems as if she wants to say something more but is somehow unsure if she should proceed.

"Which explains why you're here when you're supposed to be with your fiancée, yes?" He gives her a quizzical look, pushing her to continue.

"Well, yes and no. I bought some coffee and pierogies while you were in the shower." She nods her head towards the dining room. Obviously, she doesn't want to continue with the topic, so he nods.

She gets up from his bed and walks towards the kitchen. Dan doesn't stop himself from pulling her towards him, almost crushing her small figure against his chest. He could smell her hair, he could smell her. That causes him to relax and loosen his hold on her. She surprises him when she rests her head on his chest and wraps her arms around his waist.

"You're going to be fine." They both say.

…

"Who would have thought, huh?" She says as they munch on their pierogies while playing tick-tack-toe on his yellow pad. He raises his eyebrows in question.

"Dan Humphrey and Blair Waldorf: friends. If you tell my 16-year old self that I'd be friends with you, I'd probably banish you… to hell." She chuckles and draws X's on the entire grid.

"To be honest, I don't think it's that bad. You're cheating." He draws O's on top of her X's and draws another grid.

"I like it here." Blair says, almost to herself.

"You should. Who doesn't like being with the Humphreys?" He nudges her arm and looks at her softly.

The way his eyes sparkle as he looks at her made her blush. It's like she's the only one he sees and everything else doesn't matter. It's as if everything in the background turns to black and a spotlight is shining on her. She looks down as tears start to form in her eyes. She doesn't know why being with him is comfortable. That fact overwhelms her. Being with Louis is fun and surreal. Yet, somehow, she feels that something is missing.

"I know why you're back, Blair." He pushes a newspaper towards her.

**HEADLINE:**

**ROYAL WEDDING A NO-GO. BLAIR CORNELIA WALDORF BACKS OUT.**

He lifts her chin up and waits for her to answer. Instead, she stays silent as the tears start to fall.


	3. Chapter 3

_He lifts her chin up and waits for her to answer. Instead, she stays silent as the tears start to fall._

"Blair? What happened?" He lets her cry into his shoulder. His arms are softly wrapped around her as she does, offering a silent comfort he doesn't know she really needs. Sure, they are both in a difficult place. He, on the outs with his friends and his family and she, desperately trying to run away from life.

"I don't know what to do anymore." She says in between sobs. Then suddenly, "Why don't you have a crappier life than me right now?" She looks up at him with her puffy eyes, a brow raised in confusion. He chuckles. _She's still in there somewhere,_ he thought. Then the sobbing starts again.

…

She wakes up in his bed, covered in a blanket. Beside her, she finds Dan staring at the book he's holding in his hand.

"Do you have some sort of photographic memory? You just stare at the book then you suddenly know what it's all about?" She snuggles close to him, not at all bothered by the proximity they've recently developed. He puts her arm around her and smiles.

"Hey…" He says as he rubs her shoulder.

"Hey…" She responds to him without really looking.

"You ready to talk about whatever it is that happened?" He is pretty hell bent on finding out what she's been going through. She nods meekly. There's no point running away anymore.

"Spill it, Waldorf." He says jokingly.

…

"I thought I was pregnant." It's the first thing she tells him because she could not think of where to start. She gets up from his bed walks to his office. He follows.

"Did Louis know?" He asks her. He isn't sure why it breaks his heart to know that she could have been pregnant with another guy. She shakes her head and he looks at her, confused.

"It wouldn't have been his if I were." She says with a little hint of embarrassment. He suddenly understands. The first emotion that he feels then is anger. "Chuck?" He asks knowingly. She nods, feeling a little apprehensive of what the consequences could be.

"Does he know?" He tries to maintain composure. The one thing he really wants is to march to Chuck and punch him in the face. He feels protective of Blair. Anything or anyone that causes her pain makes him angry.

"No. He doesn't need to know." She looks at him sadly. "I told Louis about it because the guilt was killing me. He told me he kind of expected it already. He realized it may have been too soon for him to decide that he could accept everything about me… even the bad side."

"I'm sorry, Blair." That's all he says but he looks pained, not for him, but for her. He wants her to be happy but he doesn't know how that's going to happen now that she's lost her fairytale.

…

"Look, Dan. I know how you feel about Chuck. It's just that I was scared. In the greater scheme of things, Chuck's the familiar. I came back to him the moment I felt scared. But we're really over now." She looks at him and recognizes his expression. "And punching him wouldn't help, Humphrey." He laughs to himself but avoids veering away from the conversation.

"Well…yes, but because of him, you lost Louis. I know how much you wanted that fairytale, Blair." He takes a DVD from his movie shelf.

"I think it would still have ended even without Chuck. It wasn't much of a fairytale once you go deeper into it. That's mostly the reason why I left. With Chuck, it was all games. With Louis, it was fun but mostly easy. I couldn't be really myself when I'm with either of them. They could only love a part of me that they identify with. I wasn't exactly happy." She watches as he loads the DVD into his laptop.

"Breakfast at Tiffany's: a pick-me-up movie. It's your favorite, right?" He tells her with a smile. He sits on his couch and gestures for her to join him. She sits beside him and places an unopened copy of Inside on his lap. He stares at the book then looks at her sadly.

"That's the other reason I came back. We need to talk about this." She takes his hand and squeezes it. He remains quiet and just looks at her, unsure of what to say. He's not quite sure there's anything else he could say that isn't on the book.

"Humphrey, I'm being overly cheesy here and I don't think you're picking up on the hints here. If you don't say anything, I'm leaving." She says desperately.

"I wrote what I wrote as an observer. But sometimes, you can't help to put in your emotions into things you write." He lets out a deep breath. "To put it simply: Blair, I may be in…like…err…love…with…" She cups his face and cuts him off with a kiss. He stares at her, shocked. Then he smiles and tucks her hair behind her hair. "You." He looks into her eyes and finishes.

"I guess that means we can bring my bags in now." She smiles at him innocently as he throws her a confused look. "But before that, the movie…" She sighs contently and snuggles to his chest as he presses play. The bags sitting outside his loft door can wait.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: First of all, thank you to all those who read an reviewed this. I really appreciate your feedback. Second, I hope you enjoy this short chapter.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Gossip Girl or any of its characters.**

* * *

><p>They both scroll through the news clips on the internet. Blair is sprawled on the couch, her legs resting on Dan's lap. She uses his laptop and he uses her phone, looking at different news sites, surveying the damage left by his book and her unexplained disappearance from Monaco.<p>

Literary critics are raving about Dan's book without even knowing who the author is. He's already a revered writer – loved, talked about in a very positive light, and very much anonymous. The public remains clueless about the identity of the author of the hit book, but his closes friends and his family know about him. Surprisingly, not one of them came out to reveal him, not even Chuck Bass.

Chuck Bass. He is the winning choice in Gossip Girl's on-going poll: Why did Blair Waldorf back out of her dream wedding? The choices – a. Chuck Bass and b. Prince Louis is boring. Nobody ever thought of Dan freaking Humphrey.

"We're famous." Blair says as she reads through the news feed. It is merely an observation, one that is not exactly necessary as it's already a known fact between the two of them.

"_You're _famous. I'm not… my book is. And though I have dreamt of being a sought after author, I did not ever think it would happen this way." He answers her, rubbing her legs gently. They share a smile and stay silent for a while, still reading through the news.

…

"I called him Dan." She breaks their silence, looking deeply into his eyes, asking that he understands. He raises an eyebrow and she slowly drops her head; but not before her cheeks turn into a shade of red. He remains silent as he tries to comprehend what she just said.

"You're pretty slow, Humphrey. Have you suddenly turned dumb?" Her words fell on him like rocks, like she's expecting her to understand everything she says.

It sinks in then: she called her fiancé 'Dan' during an intimate moment. He feels sorry for her; yet happy at the same time. _She was thinking of me. She's been thinking of me…_

"I'm sorry, Blair." It's all he could say.

"That was the end of denial town for me. I said 'Dan' and he just… cried. Like he expected it all along, except he was worried it was going to be Chuck." He nods and pulls her close. Her lips find his and their emotions flood through.

They make love that night and she calls out his name like a sacred word. It feels right, she thought. Finally, it feels right.

…

A few more days go by and nobody bothers to contact Blair. Dan and Blair deduce they're giving her the space she needs to move on. That's her first course of action after all – hide out and keep silent. When she does come out in the open, any topics related to her hiding out are considered taboo. They also figure nobody would come looking for her in Brooklyn. After all, Dan is their outcast and best left alone… and lonely. Except he isn't anymore.

He presses the heels of his palms on his eyes, trying to squeeze out the strain from sleepless nights. She walks around the loft in his shirts now, barefoot and extremely comfortable with the limited space and the heat.

"Careful now, not that anybody else cares but I actually love your eyes. Don't you dare rub them off." He chuckles softly as she jumps into his bed, very un-Blair like. She stares at him lovingly – something she does more often now. There are still glares and a few hits now and then but there are also longing stares and soft glances. He tickles her into hysterical laughter. Her phone rings loudly, almost overpowering her screams of glee.

"Who's that?" Dan asks her without letting go, tickling her neck by nuzzling her with his nose. She giggles as she frees herself from him, moving to get her phone from the night stand. She stares at her phone before she looks at him.

"It's Serena."

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><p><strong>AN (again): Like I said, this is short. Hehe. Please review. Thanks for reading :)**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Sorry guys. I know this has been long overdue! I hope you like this chapter. :)**

* * *

><p>Dan sits on the couch with his legs stretched out on the coffee table. His laptop rests on his lap as he passes time with videos of Christian the Lion. A plate of cheese sits beside him. Blair's still on the phone with Serena, and although he very much prefers to hear the conversation, he opts to give Blair her privacy. He remembers the conversation he had with Serena when his book came out. He remembers the hurt and disappointment in her voice. But he also remembers her resignation – her acceptance that their story really has ended. And not only in a book.<p>

…

"_I can't believe you wrote this about us, Dan.__ Did you really think of me that way all this time? Lost and undecided?" She tells him wearily over the phone. He looks out the window, trying to figure out what has become of his life. His dad has decided it's best if he's not seen at Lily's place for a while; as his book left a bad taste in almost everyone's mouth._

"_Serena, I can't justify what I wrote but I'm really sorry." He doesn't know what else to do but apologize. Vanessa made a decision that should have been his and he expected consequences. He just didn't want to accept that the consequences include losing his friends._

"_I can't say I'm surprised someone thinks that about me. I'm just shocked that it's you."_

"_Serena…" He tries to reason out to her – tell her that what they had was real and not just some story he wrote in a book – but she cut him off._

"_I think it would be better if we don't talk… at least for a while." She tells him with a sigh. "And you should tell her how you feel." She hangs up._

…

Blair walks around in Dan's room, wearing only socks and his NYU sweatshirt, her phone tucked between her shoulder and her ear. She cringes her nose a little when she sees her designer clothes on the floor so she picks them up and rummages Dan's closet for a hanger. Serena's on the other line, blabbing about her job in L.A. and the cute guy who lost his job because of her. Blair lets out a loud sigh before she could stop herself.

"B, am I boring you now?" Serena chuckles a little, not at all offended by Blair's loss of interest. Admittedly, Blair does sometimes trail off when Serena's random beaus are the topic of conversations. They fall silent. "Blair, how are you holding up?"

"I'm fine! I'm holding up just fine." Blair makes her way to Dan's bedside table and finds his phone lying on it. She opens it and starts up Angry Birds. She realizes she's awfully distracted and locks the phone. "Really I'm fine. Thanks for asking."

"Yeah. I keep track of Gossip Girl, you know. And you're all over the news. So I just wanted to check in on you, how you're dealing with losing Louis and dealing with Dan's book, to check if you're doing OK." Her tone changes to a you're-not-telling-me-something-important-and-I-don't-want-to-ask-you-about-it tone. But Blair knows Serena well and clearly understands where the conversation is heading. She clearly knows about the breakup and the fact that she came home to Dan.

"You want to know why I left Louis." Blair tells Serena.

"I want to know why you left Louis." Serena repeats. "I thought you loved him. Oh, and Chuck's winning the Gossip Girl poll."

Chuck. Blair lies on Dan's bed and hugs a pillow, her phone still held close to her ear. She remembers their last goodbye and how he let her go. She wonders why he had to do it for her, why he had to give her up like she couldn't make the decision herself. She realizes it's because Chuck knows her. Despite of all the things he did to her, and all the things she did to him (albeit not as bad), he knows her. And he knows her well. He knows that if he doesn't let her go, she'll come running back to him. That's why he had to do it, too. Somehow she's thankful that he did let her go. Because if he didn't, she would probably still think they're the epic couple of the Upper East Side. The powerful twenty-year-olds. It's sad how they focused too much of their efforts on being a power couple, when one of them doesn't feel powerful and comfortable in her own skin while being in the relationship.

"Still there?" Serena breaks her train of thought, still waiting for an answer.

"I… told Louis about Chuck. He wasn't happy about it but he forgave me. He said he may have decided too soon that he could accept everything about me – the good and the bad... but he still wanted to give it a shot." Blair sighs. "So we did. But then… Wait. Are you sure you want to know about this?"

Bringing up Dan is probably not the best idea but she can't avoid it. Nobody said she can't try. She hears the door creak and sees Dan peeking from outside, making weird faces, clearly bored of waiting. She throws a pillow in his direction, giggling. He takes it as his cue to, once again, stay outside.

"Well, I'm sure it couldn't be any worse than what Dan did to us." And there it is. Blair chokes a little upon hearing what Serena said. "You ok?" Serena asks.

"I'm fine. I'm fine. It's just that…" She pauses, she's not entirely sure that this is the best idea, especially during a phone conversation. She lets out a small breath. "Louis and I and were having… an intimate moment… then I called him…"

"You can say sex, B. I'm not allergic to it." _Clearly not,_ Blair thinks to herself and mentally kicks herself for even having that thought. "Then you called him Chuck?"

"Actually… I called him Dan." She tells Serena before changing her mind. She is met with a long awkward silence that she doesn't attempt to break. Aside from not knowing what else to say, she doesn't really want to say anything else. Serena breaks their silence with a small laugh.

"Wow. I thought it was just him all along."

"What are you talking about?" Blair is suddenly confused. She sits up and fiddles with the cover of the remaining pillow. She makes a mental note to tell Dan to get more pillows, two is not, and will never be, many.

"The way he wrote you in the book. Sure there were harsh words here and there but it was clear there was something else. Just didn't think you'd see him that way, too." Blair tries to catch any hint of anger or hurt but she couldn't find any. Just the same resignation Dan described to her when they talked about what happened.

"Wait. You're not mad?"

"I want to be. But what's the point? I knew one day he'd really move on. Also knew that one day, he'll write something big and be famous. Just didn't think it would happen this way…" She trails off, falling silent for a second. "I guess I just wanted to keep hating him for the book because I didn't come out as the leading lady. If you ask me the truth, I actually liked the book."

"He's really taking it hard you know. But he understands the consequences."

"Has he told you how he feels yet?" Serena inquires, suddenly curious.

"Yes…" She doesn't know where this conversation is getting at.

"Have you told him how you feel?" Her best friend prods, suddenly sounding like she's actually interested in what's happening between her and Dan.

"Not exactly." Now she understands where the conversation is heading.

"Gossip Girl says you've never left Brooklyn until you came back. Don't think we don't know that. If you even remotely feel the same way about him as he does about you, you should tell him. You did come all the way from Monaco."

Dan opens the door to the bedroom, looking at her with his please-let-me-in look. She rolls her eyes and pats the space beside her, motioning for him to join her. He sighs in relief as he joins her in bed, pulling her gently to lean on him.

"I love you." Dan whispers to her as he wraps his arms around her. Blair couldn't keep herself from giggling into the phone, completely forgetting that Serena is still on the line. Serena shakes her head and blurts out into the phone. "Before you two make out or anything, please remember I'm still on the phone."

Blair sits up suddenly and tries to not get distracted by Dan's presence. "S, you mind if I get off the phone first?"

"Are you finally going to tell him? I mean, don't get me wrong, I probably wouldn't be your biggest fan. I just want you to be happy." She hears Serena say in an almost pained voice.

"I am happy, S. And I will… do that thing… you're telling me to do." She laughs softly. She misses her best friend and even though she knows this thing she has with Dan can affect Serena, she can't seem to pull herself away. Suddenly she feels guilty for not thinking about how Serena would feel about her coming home to Dan. She feels the need to apologize and so she does. "I'm sorry it came to this, S…"

"Blair… Dan's not that hard to love, that much I know." Serena answers sheepishly. "Well… I guess I got to go…" She hangs up before Blair could even say goodbye.

…

"So what's that about?" Dan asks Blair as she snuggles against his chest, their legs intertwined. His hand grazes lightly on her back, moving slowly above her bra line. Blair's hand disappears into his shirt, rubbing softly against his stomach. "She's just being Serena… she knows I'm here."

She finds herself straddling him, unbuttoning his shirt and kissing up his chest as she does. Dan, on the other hand, successfully unclasps her bra and pulls her (his) shirt up. "She knows you're on top of me?" She stops as she realizes what Dan just said. She doesn't want this to be how she tells him about her feelings. Not at the height of passion… not yet at least, she thinks to herself. She rolls over to his side and helps him sit down. He looks at her, confused. "Everything ok?"

"I love you." She blurts out, her eyes wide as she confesses. Dan stares at her and rubs her arms, his eyes lighting up. "I love you too." He says in response, because what else is there to say? As if reading his mind and pushes him down the bed, snuggling close to him right after. "I think I might have been in love with you longer than I would admit." She says as she takes his hand in hers.

He chuckles against her hair, smiling sheepishly with this latest revelation. He rubs her back as they fall quietly into the night.

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><p><strong>So I didn't want a bitchy Serena but I know she wouldn't exactly be happy with Dair soooo... Reviews?<strong>


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